BEAUCOUP BUCKS FOR BEAU

For someone who was not on the ballot, Beau Biden had
an active year in state politics.

If not a candidate here in Delaware, he was a
contributor, seeding the campaigns of fellow Democrats
with $30,000, while he also tended to his own coffers.

Biden was most visible during the 2012 election
season as a surrogate for the presidential ticket, a
three-fer as a vice presidential son, state attorney
general and National Guardsman who did a tour in Iraq as
a JAG officer, with an assignment to travel around the
country and mostly talk about veterans issues.

Still, he did not forget to pay attention to the home
front.

During the summer, Biden set up Beau PAC. The
advantage of a political action committee is it can take
contributions of any size, no matter how large, while
candidates are limited to maximum contributions of
$1,200 from an individual for statewide races or $600
for local races.

Beau PAC collected $82,000, the bulk of it in $5,000
checks, according to 2012 campaign finance reports on
file with the state election commissioner.

Some of the money was homegrown from people like Bart
Dalton and Stuart Grant, both lawyers from Greenville,
but some of it also came from supporters of Joe Biden's
around the country, like Larry Rasky, a Boston
communications consultant who worked on the two
presidential campaigns for 1988 and 2008.

Some children are bequeathed family heirlooms. Beau
Biden's birthright is a list of contributors.

Beau PAC in turn wrote a lot of checks -- $10,000 to
the state Democratic Party and $20,000 spread among all
of the Democratic legislative candidates in increments
of $600 for the most competitive races and $300 for the
rest.

This is the way it goes in the symbiotic world of
politics. The Biden name brings in the money, and then
it can go out to others like Nicole Poore, a rookie
candidate who was elected a state senator.

"The PAC was formed to raise money for candidates.
Every single Democratic candidate, incumbent or
challenger, whether or not they had an opponent, we made
a donation to everybody," said Molly Magarik, the
political director for Beau PAC.

In the time-honored tradition of Joe Biden, the PAC
stayed out of party primaries, the contributions flowing
only after the Election Day field was set.

2012 finance reports

Biden for A-G

Beau PAC

Beginning balance

$193,000

0

Contributions

$126,000

$82,000

Expenditures

$220,000

$67,000

Ending balance

$99,000

$15,000

Meanwhile, Beau Biden toned down the fund raising for
his own campaign treasury, named "Biden for Attorney
General, " in consideration of the candidates who were
up in 2012, but he kept it going enough to retain
campaign consultants and staff and cover his political
travel expenses. He was left with a balance of $99,000,
according to his year-end campaign finance report.

Biden is set to run for a third term as attorney
general in 2014. What comes next, who knows, but a PAC
is generally regarded as a sign of future ambition.
Governor? Senator?

Whatever, it does not hurt to have instilled good
will by distributing checks to other Democrats,
particularly as the winners of statewide office
increasingly seem to be determined in Democratic
primaries while the Republicans are in eclipse.